With the Halloween weekend upon us many will be celebrating the end of the spooky season, but Mothers Against Drunk Driving Windsor & Essex County is hoping people will remain safe during the celebrations.
This is the first year since 2019 that there are no public health requirements in effect for the Halloween weekend, following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Community Leader Chaouki Hamka says the message is very simple, arrange for a safe ride home and enjoy responsibly.
"Don't make that decision. Don't make the devastating and scary decision to drive home impaired or get into a vehicle with somebody who's been drinking or doing drugs."
Anytime of celebration, whether it be Halloween or over the holiday season, Hamka says people tend to be happy and want to go out and have a good time.
Unfortunately, that can lead to an increase in people not being focused on safety, both for themselves and others.
"Responsibility sometimes, and safety, doesn't always become our number one priority," he continued. "So at this time of the year go out and have a good time, we always encourage people to have a good time, but always be aware of your surroundings and be safe and responsible."
During the pandemic, Hamka says they saw between a 25-30 per cent increase in the number of impairment related collisions and charges.
In the last few months they haven't seen very many in terms of reporting, and Hamka says the R.I.D.E. programs carried out by local police services certainly help, but they do still see a number of cases where people are hit with three-day licence suspensions.
"And with those three-day licence suspensions what we have to consider is that they're not being charged criminally, but that means those people were on the road with alcohol in their system above a certain limit which is considered dangerous. So there are people out there who definitely are not getting the message, and there are people out there still taking the risk," Hamka stated.
He says people have to monitor wisely when out only to have a couple of drinks, because most of the time when people think they're still OK to get behind the wheel they're really not.
Compared to this time 10 years ago, Hamka says we're in a much better place than we were thanks to awareness, education and legislation, but we're still behind other countries on rooting out impaired driving.
He says we need laws that are going to actually prevent and deter people from making these decisions.
"Not just tougher sentences, we need something that's really going to wake people up and say 'you know what, I shouldn't be making this decision'. Because unfortunately people don't always look at it as a way to say 'I may kill somebody, I may injure somebody, I may leave behind my children or I may take away someone's children. We only think of it when it's going to penalize us financially or jail time."
Hamka also had a message for parents come Monday night, asking that they be aware of their surroundings while out trick or treating with the kids.
He says beyond just impaired reasons, there's still going to be cars zipping around so the more aware people are the better chance of there being no issues.